Bardstown, Kentucky

Happy Hollow Road
is a place where grain elevators
watch over Ford trucks
in an asphalt parking lot
& steam rises from pipes
as birds fly south
& I lay stretched
and pray for Booker Noe,
master distiller emeritus
to explain why, exactly,
she is lying to me right
now, and I cannot forgive,
should never forgive
as I swallow my pain whole,
hoping for invisible Bourbon
to set my soul alight
as ash burns holes into my chest
and long soft little fingers
move away from me